I had the privilege of negotiating Britain’s opt-out from the then new European single currency in 1991. My abiding memory is how clear it was that the euro had nothing to do with economics and was a political project with a dubious rationale. Some representatives of other countries were openly sceptical, but their political masters were firmly in control.

The creation of the euro has been an error of historic dimensions and done great harm to the EU, which in its first 40 years had brought economic prosperity to the citizens of the Continent. Then the less well-off countries benefited from the lowering of tariffs and the increase in internal trade. After the creation of the euro, however, economic growth slowed markedly. Poorer countries fared worse than the more prosperous countries, like Germany, which benefited from the new, weaker currency.

The Greek crisis epitomises the complete mess that Europe has made of the single currency. Greece should never have been admitted in the first place, though it was not the only country – Belgium and Italy were two others – that didn’t meet the strict criteria for membership. From the beginning, the rules put in place for the euro, relating to bail-outs, monetary financing and deficit levels, have been ignored. Europe claims to be a rule-based organisation. But however else the eurozone is run, it is not run strictly according to its own rules.

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Syriza’s rise to power highlights a deeper problem about the EU: the conflict between the inflexible, irreversible rules of the euro and national democracy. When Mr Tsipras says that Greece is a sovereign nation and that he has a democratic mandate, he is stating nothing less than a fact.

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Even the EU is concerned and next week we will receive a report from the “five presidents” on the future of the eurozone. The five presidents – not the Five Tenors – in case you have forgotten, are the presidents of the commission, the council, the euro group, the ECB and the president of the European Parliament.

The report will concentrate on how to underpin the euro. Their recommendations are thought to include a European-wide minimum wage, a common unemployment insurance system and, most importantly, a move from co-ordination to more control over national economic policies. Once again, the response of Europe to a crisis will be more Europe, more centralisation. This will only heighten the tensions between Brussels and national parliaments.

The EU has never lacked pretensions but has been less good at living up to them. This week, it has been celebrating the 30th anniversary of what it calls “one of the greatest achievements of the EU” – the Schengen Agreement, which opened internal borders in the EU.

“The Hungarian government has instructed the interior ministry to physically close the border with Serbia,” Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister said on Wednesday, adding that preparations would be completed within a week.

The fence will be four metres high, 110 miles long, and may employ barbed wire, officials said.

Hungary is one of the main points of entry for migrants into the Schengen passport free zone and is witnessing a spike in migration, with about 57,000 people entering the country illegally so far this year, up sharply from 43,000 in all of 2014. 95 percent of those cross from Serbia, which is not a member of the EU but has started accession talks. Last year, Hungary received more refugees per capita than any other EU country apart from Sweden.

Leaching voters to the far-Right party Jobbik, the government has increasingly lost patience with efforts in Brussels to reach a solution to the surging inflows into the EU. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said that a proposal to distribute migrants evenly throughout the 28 member states “borders on insanity”, while Mr Szijjártó dismissed the EU’s ”rather long and time-consuming” negotiations as he announced the Hungarian move on Wednesday.

As Italy struggles to cope with the Mediterranean migration crisis, its Alpine region of South Tyrol is facing an increasing stream of migrants who try to get to Germany or Scandinavia, through Austria.

As the Venice to Munich express pulled in at Bolzano station, the Italian police were there to meet it.

Bolzano is the last major stop in Italy before the Austrian border.

The police had been tipped off about a large group of migrants who were hoping to go to Germany. The migrants didn’t have the correct documents to cross the border so, one by one, they were quietly escorted off the train.

An aid worker has said migrants in Calais “cannot go back” to their countries so are forced to live in “treacherous conditions” whilst trying to enter England.

Maya Konforti from Charity Auberge des Migrants said migrants are “so desperate” to leave Calais they have tried to “create” traffic jams by throwing rocks on to the highway to slow down lorries so they can climb aboard and pass through the controls.

The UK Border Force and the French authorities prevented more than 39,000 attempts to cross the Channel illegally in 2014/15, which was more than double the number prevented the previous year.